Lot 40. An inscribed silver footed cup with squared handle and a documented silver dish, Southern Song-Yuan dynasty, 13th century; 10.3cm width of cup over handle; 16.5cm diam of dish (2). Sold for US$8,925. © Bonhams 2001-2023

The small cup with everted rim and a rolled lip on the exterior, the horizontal 'h'-shaped handle and flared high foot soldered on, a set of stamped maker's marks below the lip rim on either side of the handle, brushed in black ink one single character at the bottom of interior, the silver polished smooth with traces of hammering apparent on the interior wall, mottled with malachite encrustations; the saucer dish with shallow rounded sides rising to a flat everted rim and rolled lip, inscribed in black ink four lines of running script on the front and back sides, covered with extensive malachite encrustations.

Note: The inscription on the interior of the cup may be read as hua (画). The maker's stamps by the handle may be read as □ si lang (□四郎).

The inscriptions on the dish are largely indecipherable, but the first line on the interior includes a cyclical date which may be read as "fourth day of the eighth month in the geng yin year" (庚寅八月四日) and may be corresponding to 1230 or 1290.

Compare the very similar silver footed cup with an 'h'-shaped handle, from the hoard at Bozhixiang, Linli, Hunan province, illustrated by Liao in Song dai jinyinqi yanjiu (Research of Song Dynasty Gold and Silver), Nanjing, 2012, p. 190, pl. 2.2.2-2, attributed to Yuan dynasty.

Compare also the silver cup with similar "h"-shaped handle, found in a cache of silver wares at Xixie village, Yaotang, Jintan, Jiangzu province, illustrated in the catalog of the special exhibition organized by the Zhejiang Provincial Museum, Zhong xing ji sheng: Nan Song feng wu guanzhi (Achievements of Southern Song Dynasty), Beijing, 2015, p. 317, described as Southern Song dynasty. A gold footed cup of closely related form discovered in 1987 in a Sothern Song tomb at Feilongkou village, Lingdong county, Lanxi, Zhejiang province, now in the collection of the Lanxi City Museum, is illustrated in the same exhibition catalog, op. cit., p. 114.

Similar cups with "h"-shaped handle were also made in ceramics. A Yaozhou cup discovered in 1974 at Changping, Beijing, and now in the collection of the Capital Museum is illustrated in Zhongguo wenwu jinghua daquan: taoci juan (Compendium of Chinese Archaeological Treasures: Ceramics), Hong Kong, 1993, no. 508, described as Jin dynasty; a Guanyao cup in the Anhui Provincial Museum is illustrated op. cit., no. 297, described as Southern Song dynasty; and a Qingbai porcelain cup found at the Shaoli ancient city site, Zhenlai county, Jilin province, is illustrated in Zhongguo chutu ciqi quanji (Complete Collection of Ceramic Art Unearthed in China), Vol. 2, Tianjin, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Beijing, 2008, p. 193, no. 193, described as Yuan dynasty.

A larger silver dish of this form engraved with a cyclical date wu yin (戊寅) corresponding to 1278 is illustrated in Zhongguo chuanshi wenwu shoucang jianshang quanshu: jinyin qi (Compendium of Chinese Collection and Connoisseurship: Gold and Silver), Vol. II, Beijing, 2005, p. 209. Another silver dish of this type with two sets of engraved inscriptions unearthed in 1966 at Jintan, Jiangsu province and now in the collection of the Zhenjiang Museum, is illustrated in Zhenjiang chutu jinyinqi (Gold and Silver Unearthed in Zhenjiang), Beijing, 2012, p. 80, no. 54, described as Yuan dynasty.

Compare also a Ding ware dish of this form, illustrated by Krahl in Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, Volume Three (II), London, 2006, p. 426, no. 1425, described as 12th to 13th century.